When it comes to nicknames, I had my fair share of them while growing up. As a matter of fact, even I had a lot of them while growing up and as it is I can’t even remember every single one of them. However, none of them stuck to adulthood and now I’m just Bruno Kema to everyone.
Nicknames are usually more descriptive about us because they tell a particular story every time we hear the name, we are reminded of it. We can be given a nickname just because of something we once did or said, and every time we are called by the nickname, we remember that event. If it was not a happy event, we would hate the nickname, but if it was funny and happy, then we would have no issue being called by that.
One of the earliest names I remember being called was “Tallie” or “Tallest”. As you can guess, I’ve always been tall for my age and back then, I was easily always the tallest in our peer group, hence the name. It stuck only in my neighborhood though. Because when I went to Junior secondary school, I was given another name.
Would you believe that for a while I was called “Ewa”? Which is the word for beans in the Yoruba language. I used to enjoy eating beans back then, I didn’t mind taking it to school. Many of my friends attributed my height to my love for beans, and seeing as I was just slim and lanky, it looked like I was just all length and no width. The day the name was given to me was when I brought beans to school every day for almost a week.
The name stuck for a while, but now, I can’t even remember how it phased out. When I moved on to senior secondary school, I didn’t really have a nickname. There were those who called me Bruno Mars, but that didn’t last either because I was always reminding them that I was Bruno Kema, not Mars. After a while, it got annoying seeing people begin to sing songs by Bruno Mars immediately they laid eyes on me as if I’m supposed to be happy or something. Thankfully though, this didn’t stop me from liking the artiste.
Well, one name moved from being a nickname to actually becoming a real name for me. And that name was Kema. A lot of people, even today, believe that Kema is my surname, and even when I tell them it’s my name they want to know the meaning.
Bruno is a unique name, not something you see someone bear every day. However, Nkemakonam which is my Igbo name was not as unique. It was shortened to Nkem back then and in my class (still in junior school) there were about four of us that were called that. It could be irksome indeed. The only good thing was that more people knew me by Bruno, so when they called out “Nkem", they were not usually referring to me. But it didn’t stop me from looking up to answer.
Till today, I still don’t know how I was able to pull Kema out of Nkemakonam, I think my immediate elder sister had something to do with it. And I realized that the combo of Bruno Kema went so well together that it was going to be my name. I so much liked the name that when I was registering for senior secondary school, I used it as my name. And today, it’s my official name.
There was a time when I used to keep the full form from people, but eventually, I stopped seeing the point. I am proud of my name and I’ll rep it everywhere I go. I love the way people smile when they realize the full form is actually something simple, but they would never have guessed.
What a beautiful name.
Presently, I have no nickname. I guess boys are too busy chasing money to be giving each other silly names, because after all the difference between Biggie and Orobo is money! Well, I’m looking forward to the next nickname I would be given.